The New Normal.

Let's hear it for brothers-in-law! Michael showed up last week to help around here...and take pictures! Because I haven't been taking pictures. Or doing dishes. Or cooking. Or even showering. Mostly I nurse a baby. And sometimes, to mix it up, I wipe butts.


This is poor Greeley- she's no doubt waiting for something. Something to eat. A sippy cup of juice. A book. Someone to get her on PBSkids.org. Waiting for something.


Luckily, she has an Uncle Michael- who can do all that stuff! So, thank you, Michael! Thank you for loading the dishwasher and climbing like a baby jaguar with Greeley and Diego and holding Emerson so that I can eat, pee or even shower. Thank you!

***This post was typed entirely with only my left hand because I was- want to guess?- nursing a baby...

Damn, that hurt...

So, last Friday I think it was... Tracey from Just Another Mommy Blog let me know I had won her awesome giveaway. And by awesome giveaway, I mean $500 worth of cute clothes from BeiBambini. See?


Oh so cute. Tracey said they made her uterus ache. Maybe it was the cute clothes, because my uterus started aching Saturday night.

Or maybe it was that my younger sister and her fellow came up for dinner. Greg and Rich were enjoying some cocktails. Quite a few cocktails. Or perhaps it was Murphy's Law and that we didn't think I could have the tubal ligation done if he was born on the weekend? Whatever the reason, I grew kind of suspicious Saturday night that the whole labor thing had started.

Before we go further, the following story is long. And rambling. And if you're Jamie, my sister, stop reading now. Child birth is bunnies and flowers and rainbows and unicorns. And that's all you need to know for the next two weeks. All the rest of you, if you just want to see the baby picture, scroll to the end- I won't know.

Back to Saturday evening...The contractions were definitely more noticeable than all those silly Braxton-Hicks contractions I'd been having for weeks. I was half heartedly paying attention to them and realized they were about a minute long and 3-5 minutes apart.

So, I called my midwife and gave her a heads up. I had to explain I hadn't really been timing them that well because I was making dinner. I wasn't dashing out the door to the hospital or anything, but in case she had plans or anything on a Saturday night, I just thought I should mention it.

Then I called Grandma Lynda. She's our friend Travis' Mom. She watched the kids for us when Greeley was born. As soon as we told them Grandma Lynda would be watching them while we were having Emerson, they were squealing with delight and listing off all the ways Lynda was awesome. [As an aside, one of those ways was "pizza from scratch!!"... and yet when I make pizza from scratch, all I get are squeals of horror...]

Where was I? Oh, yeah, we called Lynda. And I explained that I wasn't heading out the door, but it might be a good idea if she was here in case it happened in the middle of the night.

So, we have Lynda. My sister, who's due with her first in two weeks, is getting a sneak peek at labor. She's sticking around in case I need-oh, say a sober ride?- to the hospital. I tell Rich to take a nap and maybe sleep off some of the alcohol. And that's kind of where things stood for a while. After a bit, Jamie and Greg left for home. Lynda timed my contractions. Rich slept. I watched a lot of cable tv.

Lynda realized she had to run across town at one point to get the cord for her phone, but we seemed to have plenty of time. Contractions still about a minute long and five to six minutes apart. Sometime in the early, early morning the contractions went up a notch again. Greeley also woke up. [If you can avoid having a toddler on your stomach during a contraction, I recommend it.] As the pain increases, I'm starting to be a bit more...ahem... vocal. Perhaps that's why Shea woke up? But the contractions are actually further apart... like seven minutes. So, still no rush.

Lynda decided to dash across town before things got too serious. You know what happened while she was gone, right? Things got serious. I went from moderate whimpers to yelling, "Oh my God! That hurts!!" Poor Shea, having witnessed this before with the birth of Greeley is asking, "Should I get someone? Dad? Lynda?" Greeley was offering her good friend Big Bear. Big Bear always makes her feel better. If I wasn't blinded by pain and unable to bend over, I would have kissed her.

Rich has the bags in the car and calls my midwife to say we're rolling to the hospital. Lynda pulls up and we don't wait for her to even get out of her car... we're walking to the car. As I'm about to get in, yet another contraction hits and there is no way in hell I'm crawling into that car right then. Instead it seems a much better idea to stand in my driveway at 7:30 on a Sunday morning and scream about how much it fricking (perhaps not the word I used at the time) hurt. How else do you tell ALL the nighbors the time is here? Efficient, I tell ya. So, Rich is coercing me into the car with words like, "I don't want him to be born in the driveway." and "Get in the damn car." I do.

I'm pretty sure Rich was excited to try out his race car driving skills for the four blocks to the hospital. I recall telling him to take it easy because the sharp turns weren't helping. And the contractions? They were just one on top of another by now.

He dropped me at the ER entrance and went to park the car. I walked in, told the nice lady I was in labor and just as she started asking me the routine "Are you sure you're in labor?" questions, another contraction hits. Seeing no one in the ER, I skip the restraint and continue "vocalizing my pain". On the edge of my awareness, I hear her on the phone saying something like, "Do you hear her? Get down here now!"

Rich shows up and she shows up with the wheelchair and wants me to sit down. HA HA HA HA HA!!! Perhaps she's not aware of how much more it hurts when sitting? I say no thank you to the wheel chair. She says you have to, it's policy. I say No I don't. Rich says OK honey, let's go have the baby in the parking lot. She relents. Rich will tell you this kicks off my series of no's.

Everything they asked for the next five minutes resulted in me saying no. No, I do not want your hospital gown. I want to wear my own gown. No, I will not do a clean catch urine sample right now. No, I do not want to lie down in the bed. The last I finally had to relent on.

They hook me up to the monitors and I hear Anne, our midwife is there. It's getting fuzzy at this point, but Anne says "Yeah, your 10. If you feel like pushing, go ahead. In the mean time I'm going to break your water." And she did. And the contractions seemed to stop for a sweet minute or two, but then of course they were back. And there was the pushing and the baby... but again the details are fuzzy. Thank God for endorphins and such.

In the end, like twenty minutes after we left the house and eleven minutes after we got into the delivery room, there was Emerson. And it hurt like hell. But, it was so worth it.

Crab Shack and Halloween: or yes, I'm still here...

Yes, yes, yes. I'm still here. I'm one of those pregnant ladies that is awesome at what used to be called false labor. That's the one where you have nice contractions four or five minutes apart for hours on end, and then they stop. However, seeing as Monday is the actual due date, I'm thinking there will be a baby sometime in the next week.

In the mean time, remember when I said you'd all be pleasantly surprised if I posted anything? See? Aren't you pleasantly surprised.

A few weeks ago, our neighbors, John and Deb, treated us to dinner at a local crab restaurant, Dave and Jane's. I'd offer the link, but it's not working today. Anywho, there were all you can eat crabs and Rich was mighty, mighty excited.

Atlee discovered there was also fried chicken to be had.


And of course, the crabs.

Greeley thought the mallets were pretty nifty.

Shea mostly wished he'd brought his DS. He didn't realize adults could eat crabs for two hours.

And last Saturday as you may recall was Halloween. Rich and his friend, Travis, took our kids and Amy's two around the neighborhood. When they got home, there was the traditional candy trade. Trinity ended up with like six Milky Ways, so she was pretty psyched.


Happy belated Halloween! If you don't hear anything for the next few days, it either means Emerson is finally here or that I just didn't feel like posting.